The Burning Man
by smileymcface
Summary: Gabriel (OC) is a new member of Cerberus' Phoenix Initiative. He believes in Cerberus and what it stands for, but as he gets deeper into the organization, his beliefs are shaken.


Everything burned. His body, his bones, hell, even his mind felt like it was on fire. With a silent chuckle he remembered the doctor telling him to count down from ten, he thought he'd make it all the way to zero. The last thing he remembered was saying "Niiiiiiiii….." then, the bright light over his head, and everything hurting. He tried to twist his head to see how everything looked and found he could not move.

"He appears to be waking up Doctor." A foggy voice said from what sounded like a mile away.

An older, rather portly man, with a neatly trimmed snow white beard, walked up to the man on the table and looked down at him through small circular glasses. "Good morning Gabriel, how do you feel?" his deep voice boomed from the top of a mountain, it felt like an almost biblical moment. The birth of creation and God looking down at the life he created.

Gabriel's face contorted slightly and he fought to open his mouth to struggle out the word, "Ears…" It echoed through his head like a cave.

The doctor's round face broke into a knowing grin. "Ah yes, one moment," he turned to call to someone, "Marge, could you run a scan on his cerebral implants and see if we have an error message anywhere." Turning back to the man on the table, "Just a second Gabriel, we'll get you fixed up, it's very typical to have some kind of small bug when you get this much work done." The doctor gave a reassuring grin, and a less than reassuring pat on the shoulder. He couldn't feel the touch. A bit of pressure as his body shifted, but he did not feel the actual touch.

Fighting to control his hysteria, Gabe instead shifted his focus to his breathing and the strange orange lights surveying his skull. The lights started moving towards the back of his head, and a moment later the sounds of the world rushed back into his ears. The soft beep of the heart monitor, a steady buzz from a blood filtering machine, the hiss of cold air seeping through the vents, keeping everything that typical unnecessary cold of a hospital.

"...repair matrix is now functioning properly, he should have his hearing back to normal shortly." The first voice said, (pitched much higher than the doctor's) now coming through completely clearly. The doctor looked down again at the hospital bed. "How do I sound?" he asked with his permanent warm grin.

"Good" came the croaked out response.

"Now, I'll just talk and let you keep quiet and just listen so your repair matrix can do it's work. That's why your voice sounds odd and it hurts so much to speak. The subdermal implant in your throat is sitting right on top of your vocal cords. When everything is working at 100% you'll sound fine and be able to activate it with a thought and send radio traffic hands-free. It should prove rather handy. You will be able to whisper and we will hear you crystal clear. Its an invention of the ever beautiful Dr Margaret Cho who is monitoring you on the other side of the room."

Gabriel tried to move his neck and found he was still unable to control anything below his chin.

"Ah yes, I should've already told you that you are paralyzed. I'm sure the experience is quite unnerving, however, without giving you too much of a headache with the science of it all, we've basically shut off your spinal cord for now. You are running on our life support systems alone, which is why everything hurts as much as it does. It's unfortunate, but it is very necessary. You have nanobots running rampant through your system repairing tissue. Should you move too much while the 'bots are working then they can end up meshing the wrong nerve endings together, and nobody wants that to happen again." Once more with the warm, calming smile….." _again"..._. did not sound very reassuring.

"These nanobots are your repair matrix. They will keep your body intact for the most part. We got the tech from a geth bomber that went down. Managed to sneak an entire databank out before the alliance showed up. One of the programs was from a self healing colossus. Your system will not be able to repair rapidly in the field like the colossus, but it will help you recover from anything afterwards. You should be up on your feet later today, and at 100%, ready for field work by tomorrow evening because of the little guys. They really are incredible. Anyways, I said I would leave you alone. Just try to sleep, I'll turn something on to keep you from going crazy, but just relax, you'll be out and about shortly I promise. Dr Cho, let's give him his space" The portly man smiled and walked out of the room, followed by by soft footsteps of the still unseen Dr Cho, Gabriel found himself alone again.

"Feeling good Sparky?!" A familiar voice yelled through the gym.

"Onyx! Sir, you came, I'm flattered." Gabriel replied with a salute. Onyx returned the salute and grinned. "I'm not a Centurion anymore, I'm a drill instructor. So, as far as Cerberus is concerned, you outrank me now….sir. But don't get used to it you little shit."

They both laughed as they moved to an open area in the gym. Onyx was Gabe's Centurion before his selection into the Phoenix program. He was actually the one who signed him up for the physical tests. Once the physicals were completed and passed, the bloodwork came back saying that he was a damn near perfect match for, basically everything. A match that's that good doesn't happen very often but when it does, amazing things happen, just look at Infiltrator Enzo.

"So," Onyx started, "how much did they do?" Both men were wearing standard issue under-armor body suits, so the older, dark skinned man couldn't see the extent of the implants, just the odd, circuitry lines in an otherwise young and inexperienced looking face. The saving grace was his eyes. Grey eyes that pierced straight to the bone at whatever the younger man focused on. The eyes were the same, but now, if you looked close enough, small lenses covered that grey, spinning and moving to keep everything in focus. No one ever got close enough to notice it though.

"Most of me actually." came the reply. Gabriel was not wanting to share too much, even with his oldest friend. His fists came up, his body assuming a fighter's stance. Onyx was a perfect mirror. It was obvious that the older man wanted to know more than he'd just been told, but when you feel like a stranger in your own body, it's hard to talk about.

Onyx and Gabriel had been through hell and back together. Onyx an incredible leader and Gabe an extraordinarily gifted soldier, at least that's what he'd always been told. And hell, Onyx has been with Cerberus for nearly twenty years, so the youngster wasn't about to argue with a compliment. Even through all the battles they'd seen, the most calming time for them as friends was when they would enter a ring to spar. It was always a great time to fall back on instinct, and talk, while fighting someone you'd already fought hundreds of times. Both won and lost in nearly equal measure, Gabe's speed and Onyx's determined experience equalled each other out most of the time.

After squaring off they paused, and as usual, Onyx moved first. A quick jab straight to the face. Gabe leaned back just barely and lazily swung back at his stomach to open space up again. "So," Gabe asked, "why'd you decide to get out of the field?" Grey eyes flashed as a fist swung towards them again. Onyx was running a little hot today. Dancing out of the way, Gabe got his response.

"I almost died." The shock was the moment Onyx needed and a gloved fist caught caught the younger man on the chin and put him on the ground. "You what?"

"Almost died." He repeated helping Gabe from the ground and putting his fists up again and they continued trading blows. "Went out to Noveria again. We'd heard more Rachni had cropped up so they sent the old team out to check on it." The fists began to speed up and both started to breathe a little harder and focus a little more, their sentences began to get choppy. "The rookie went first...too.. gung ho. Took a blind corner and took some kind of... _oooff…."_ a blow slipped in. "Good one. Too gung ho, took a tentacle thing through the faceplate. _Ha!_ " Gabriel took a hit to the stomach. "Been working out hard huh kid?" he said when he felt the unusual toughness to Gabe's core "….anyways…..kid died fast, and then it all went to shit."

The fight paused for a moment as a long away look covered the old Centurion's face. Gabriel saw the blatant opening but knew now was not the time. "They came out of the walls kid, the fucking walls. It's an underground lab and somehow they were in the walls. After the greenhorn from right before you left, McGee, remember him?" Gabe nodded." After he went down, some kind of acid ate his legs off and he stayed behind to give us more time, didn't count for much, one fell out of the ceiling on top of him. I'm not sure about Owens, one of em grabbed her through the wall and pulled her in. She was screaming and shooting from deep in that hole for what felt like hours. Blaylock was taken and went down like a fucking viking. One of the bastards popped out right in front of us as we headed to exfil and he unloaded that ugly ass rifle of his into it til it ran dry, then another one was after him. So, get this" he continued with a morbid grin, "he throws the gun at it, and jumps on top of it with his combat knife and damn near saws it's head off. The next one through the hole returned the favor….." The grin went away and Onyx's eyes went to a far off place. "One by one, the team went down. A dozen heroes stories, and I left them to rot."

Letting out a heavy sigh, he looked Gabriel in his eyes and continued. "Eventually it was just me. This leg," he reached down and smacked the leg with his glove and it made an odd dull sound, "it ain't mine. All cybernetics." He lifted the front of his shirt to show what looked like a large spot of candle wax was poured on his chest. "One of em punched me through the back as I got in the carrier to lift off, the leftovers of my leg dragging along behind me. It picked me up off the ground with it's tentacle thing and the gunner shot it down and drug me into the carrier and I passed out, I knew i was dead. I came around almost a month later, dropped out of active duty and went to training. It's hard to come back after losing a team. A chunk of me didn't come back at all. You have no idea what that's like, to lose so much…."

Gabriel stood there silently, sad for his friend, and thinking to himself, _You have no idea…._

Mirrors don't tell lies. They reflect. There is nothing more pure than that. A friend will look you in the face and tell you what you want to hear. A man will tell his wife a dress that is two sizes too small looks good on her. Man's best friend will never judge you for your wrongdoings. But a mirror. A mirror cannot lie, it just shows you what _is_. Gabriel's mirror showed something that he felt could barely be considered human. He stood in front of his mirror naked except for a pair of boxers.

His face was still his own, except for the circuit lines etched into it. The majority of them ran from his temples to the corners of his eyes, with a few sweeping back towards his neck. They were a deep gunbarrel grey, much like his eyes. It was unnerving. His thin face was getting scruffy as his beard came in. He had more than 5 o'clock shadow, but less than a full beard. Just enough to look scruffy if he wanted, or look dashingly handsome, he'd always liked it that way.

As his eyes searched himself he was reminded again that his eyes were new also, it was barely noticeable, but there were now lenses implanted into them. These new eyes could see well enough to tell that that were new, they could see their own tiny circuitry in the mirror.

His new eyes kept moving down, checking out what else was new. It started where his neck met his shoulders. Hydraulic metal rods were there now to support his neck. He was just as flexible as before, but breaking his neck or choking him would be damn near impossible now. A high collared shirt or any armor would cover it up unless you looked really closely. Then the changes became more dramatic. His arms were bundles of jet black cords that went all the way to the shoulder before branching out like a spider's arms to wrap across his chest and back, completely caging his upper rib cage in metal. There were other support struts under his skin down the side of his torso to help support the additional weight. The bottoms of his boxers covered the top of his legs, made of the same corded metal. He was told that there was some bone and tissue under his thighs, but on the surface was all metal, like his arms. The outside edges of his thighs opened to reveal small compartments for his matching modified Carnifexes. It was an impressive body. Blades built into the arms that could unfold with a thought, hidden weapons systems, exceptionally reinforced bones and muscles, upgradable systems, tons of possibilities. It was truly impressive, but he didn't feel at home in it yet. He'd been assigned his first mission though. Two weeks out, so he knew that he'd better get used to it quickly. A black fist flashed forwards, and the mirror shattered…he'd better get used to it faster than this...

A/N - " _Infiltrator Enzo" is a reference to the mobile game "M0ss Effect: Infiltrator." It follows a Cerberus Operative named Randall Enzo through a number of quests and builds your Galaxy at War score. I got it on sale a long time ago for .99 and really enjoyed it. Idk how much it costs now, but it's worth at least a look._

 _\- Also, Gabriel's cybernetics are basically the same as Adam Jensen's from Deus-ex: Human Revolution. I felt like they fit very well inside the Mass Effect universe and thought I'd see how it played out. Thanks all, hope you enjoy._


End file.
